(March 2): Provisional rates to hire a tanker to carry oil from the Middle East to China have more than doubled since Friday due to the war in the Middle East and an increasingly tight supply of vessels. A Suezmax that can hold as much as one million barrels of crude was fixed on the route at a rate of 525 industry standard Worldscale points, according to shipbrokers. The industry uses so-called Worldscale rates as a way to easily calculate both vessel earnings and per-barrel freight costs across thousands of trade routes. The widening war in the Middle East and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz is turbocharging tanker costs, which had already been rising on the growing threat of a conflict. Voyages on the Middle East to China route are normally agreed on based on tonnage available on a VLCC that can carry as much as two million barrels.
